Important Quotations Explained

Important Quotations Explained

Important Quotations Explained

Important Quotations Explained

Important Quotations Explained

The
savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck
off the bull’s horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be
vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write ‘Here is
good horse to hire’ let them signify under my sign ‘Here you may
see Benedick, the married man.’
(I.i.215–219)

Benedick delivers this speech to Claudio
and Don Pedro. Don Pedro has just quoted an old adage about even
the wildest of people eventually calming down enough to submit to
love and marriage, suggesting that in time even a savage bull will
bear the yoke of a woman’s will. Benedick adamantly refuses to believe
this commonplace and decides to mock it. The “sensible” Benedick
means the rational Benedick, a person too intelligent to yield to
the irrational ways of love. Benedick imagines a fantastical scene
here, with horns clapped on his head and writing practically branded
into his forehead. It was traditional in the Renaissance to imagine
that cuckolds—men whose wives committed adultery—had horns on their heads.
Benedick’s evocation of this image suggests that any woman he marries
is sure to cheat on him. Claudio and Don Pedro continue to tease
Benedick about the bull imagery throughout the play.

2.

What
should I do with him—dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting
gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that
hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth
is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.
(II.i.28–32)

These lines constitute Beatrice’s witty
explanation for why she must remain an unmarried woman and eventually
an old maid: there is no man who would be a perfect match for her.
Those who possess no facial hair are not manly enough to satisfy
her desires, whereas those who do possess beards are not youthful
enough for her. This conundrum is not particular to Beatrice. In
Renaissance literature and culture, particularly in Shakespeare,
youths on the cusp of manhood are often the most coveted objects
of sexual desire.

Although Beatrice jokes that she would dress up a beardless youth
as a woman, there is a hidden double meaning here: in Shakespeare’s
time, the actor playing Beatrice would have been doing exactly that,
since all female roles were played by prepubescent boys until the
late seventeenth century. Indeed, the beardless adolescent had a
special allure that provoked the desires of both men and woman on
the Elizabethan stage. Beatrice’s desire for a man who is caught
between youth and maturity was in fact the sexual ideal at the time.
The plot of the play eventually toys with her paradoxical sentiments
for a man both with and without a beard: during the course of the
play, Benedick will shave his beard once he falls in love with her.

3.

They
say the lady is fair. ‘Tis a truth, I can bear them witness. And
virtuous—’tis so, I cannot reprove it. And wise, but for loving
me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit—nor no great argument
of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her.
(II.iii.204–208)

Benedick has just overheard Claudio,
Leonato, and Don Pedro discussing Beatrice’s fabricated love for
him. Alone on the stage, he ponders this news and concludes that
the best thing for him to do is to return this love: “for I will
be horribly in love with her” (II.iii.208).
This line produces a comical effect, as it seems preposterous that
someone would fall “horribly” in love with another person after
simply weighing that person’s virtues. The choice of the word “horribly”
accentuates the comic aspects of Benedick’s decision. Not only does
he return her love, but he does so to the point of overthrowing
her, and all others in his midst, with love. The choice of “horribly”
could also echo a bit of the merry war Beatrice and Benedick have
been fighting with their wits. There has always existed an element
of competition between them. It is not enough for Benedick to reciprocate
Beatrice’s passions; he must outdo them, perhaps in order to unseat
her and win the competition. The actor playing Benedick has a number
of choices in performing this soliloquy: he can reveal that he has
always been in love with Beatrice but is in denial about his true
feelings and therefore must go through the motions of weighing the
pros and cons of loving her in a rational manner. Or he can simply
treat this moment as one more parry in the thrusts and blows of
their “merry war” and conclude that the only way to win is to surpass
her, even in love.

4.

O
Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been
If half thy outward graces had been placed
About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!
But fare thee well, most foul, most fair, farewell
Thou pure impiety and impious purity.
For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious.
(IV.i.98–106)

Claudio has just openly rebuked Hero
at their wedding ceremony, throwing her back to Leonato, her father.
He believes that she has not only been unfaithful to him but has
lost her virginity, and therefore her purity and innocence, to someone
else before her marriage. Claudio’s belief is the result of Don
John’s evil plot to deceive him and make him lose Don Pedro’s goodwill.
These lines demonstrate Shakespeare’s ability to fill a speech with
double meanings and wordplay through repetition. For instance, “Hero”
appears twice in the first line, changing meaning the second time.
The first time, Claudio addresses his former beloved directly. The
second time, Claudio compares “Hero” to an ideal conqueror of his
heart, as classical heroes conquered and won great battles. Yet
Hero has lost her heroic qualities. “Fare thee well most foul, most
fair, farewell” plays with repetition and opposites: the sound of
the word “fair” is repeated three times in the space of one line,
underscoring Claudio’s despair at discovering that Hero’s outward
beauty or fairness conceals a “foul” spirit, as he thinks.

There might also be some play on the double meanings of “fair”—as
beautiful, and as balanced and true. In Claudio’s eyes, Hero is
not only no longer “fair,” meaning beautiful (she is “foul”), but
she is also no longer “fair,” meaning truthful, but is its opposite, false
or dissembling. Both the combination of “fair” and “foul” in the
same line and “pure impiety and impious purity” in the following
line demonstrate a rhetorical technique Shakespeare is famous for
using in his plays: antithesis, or the combining
of paradoxical opposites in one line for emphasis. Moments in which
characters spout antitheses usually occur at the height of passion.
For Claudio to use these particular opposites to describe his frustration
with Hero’s seemingly fair exterior and false and foul interior
reveals that he is livid with rage and driven to despair.

5.

Dost
thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that
he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that
I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that
I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall
be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which
is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which
is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that
knows the law, go to . . . and one that hath two gowns, and everything
handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down
an ass!
(IV.ii.67–78)

Dogberry is the constable and leader
of the town night watch in Messina, the town where the action of
the play takes place. Despite his comedic substitutions of incorrect
words for similar-sounding correct words, Dogberry does succeed
in apprehending Conrad and Borachio and unraveling Don John’s plot
to deceive Claudio and ruin Hero. At this moment, he has caught
Borachio and brought him before the sexton to record the events
of the evening. Binding the villains together, Dogberry calls Conrad
a “naughty varlet” (IV.ii.65). Conrad has
angrily responded to Dogberry with “Away, you are an ass, you are
an ass” (IV.ii.66). Dogberry, infuriated
that anyone should insult him, delivers this indignant comic speech
filled with verbal misuse, saying “suspect” instead of “respect”
and “piety” instead of “impiety.” Dogberry’s determined insistence
that he be “writ down an ass” is comical, because instead of asking
that the sexton note that Conrad has insulted Dogberry, Dogberry
contributes to his own slander by insisting that the sexton put
in writing that Dogberry is “an ass.” Dogberry is most offended
by Conrad’s accusation because the constable interprets Conrad’s
rudeness as a class criticism, which it most likely is. Dogberry
may not be a nobleman, but he is a good, law-abiding citizen, he
owns his own house, and he possesses two costly pieces
of apparel (two gowns), which signifies that though he does not
belong to the court, he is part of the emergent bourgeoisie. He
is right to feel insulted by the ill-behaved noble Conrad’s invective.
Though Dogberry’s poor command of the English language results in
hilarity, there is nothing poor or evil about him.

In this SparkNote, it mentions that Don Pedro "seems to have no romantic interest of his own," although in Act 2, Scene 1 (beginning around line 275) Don Pedro is talking with Beatrice about her views on marriage after the masquerade. Beatrice makes a joke, saying, "I would rather have one of your father’s getting. / Hath your grace ne'er a brother like you? / Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them." Don Pedro responds, "Will you have me, lady?" which is potentially another joke, although it may also be quite a se... Read more→

I think that at the end of the day, Don Pedro is more inclined to try be of any help and see his friends happy. Don Pedro offers himself to Beatrice lightly, but with the obvious intent of wanting to secure her own happiness, especially since she is so fickle about men in the first place. He doesn't seek her hand with his own interest so much as in the interest of her own well being. It illustrates just how selfless his character is.

There is a mistake in the summary: at the very beginning, it says Antonio would be the father of Beatrice. Actually, he is most likely only her uncle, just as Leonato. Why else is Leonato the first who concerns of her marriage instead of Antonio? (He tries to convince her (2.1) and Don Pedro addresses him with this issue (2.1).) It is because he is her closest male relative (in the printed edition I have this is even written within an annotation) and therefore responsible for her.
These are only evidences but I could not find any indic... Read more→